The magician says a few words—his "abracadabra" or "hocus-pocus"—and presto! A rabbit pops out of a hat, or the coin in the magician's hand disappears.

Is prayer ever considered to be something like the magician's "abracadabra"? Is there ever a suggestion that if only the right words can be found and voiced, the desired results will be automatically obtained? But this is not the way prayer actually works. Truly effective prayer isn't a matter of merely repeating certain words or phrases that might have some magical quality to them. Rather, when one prays deeply, he is fundamentally engaged in the activity of divine inspiration; spiritual truth is being revealed to human consciousness by the Christ.

Surely prayer does change things. It can produce even radical changes in human conditions. It enables one to overcome limitations. And the scientific prayer that brings to light the truth of God and of man's real being has undeniable healing power behind it. Through prayer in Christian Science, disease disappears—and this is no trick or sleight of hand. Disease vanishes into its actual nothingness, because as a mortal belief it cannot hold up in the face of truth. The spiritual fact of divine reality (the only reality), where God, good, is All-in-all, and where man is God's pure spiritual likeness, invalidates the error of disease.

So the results of prayer are not magic, although they are marvelous. But only as prayer brings a change in thought can we expect the marvel of healing to be evident. Thought must move. Prayer must move us to relinquish old, limited, mortal ways of perceiving reality and thus to glimpse the glory of life in God.

As we are willing to let the truth of man's real spiritual identity regenerate us, we will see the tangible evidence of healing. And until we have this willingness and are transformed in some degree, the "right" words will never of themselves be sufficient to change our experience.

When the magician uses his "abracadabra," there is no rational reason why that particular word should have any effect. And in fact it doesn't. The magician is employing deception. But when someone prays as Christian Science teaches, the words are representing to human consciousness spiritual ideas, truths, incontrovertible facts of reality. So there is a reason that the prayer has an effect. But is it the words of themselves that produce results, or is it the Christly ideas the words represent—ideas that move thought from a material base to a spiritual standpoint?

For example, the words "God is good, and God is All" are certainly true. Yet merely to repeat them, even over and over, without understanding what they really mean would be essentially fruitless. Only through an awakening to the substance of the profound truths those words represent would we see what meaning is there for our own experience. As we realize, perhaps, that God's goodness and allness mean that evil has no place in us as God's expression, our thinking begins to change its base from merely believing in a sinning or a sick mortal man. We are coming to see more clearly that man is actually pure, whole, and immortal. Thought is moving—moving in prayer; and healing comes. Marvelous, yes, but not magic.

Christ Jesus spoke to his followers about prayer and warned, "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." ^{Matt. 6:7.} And he had just previously told his disciples, "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." ^{Matt. 6:6.}

Jesus was speaking of prayer as a quiet, sacred time of communion. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy comments on our Master's words. She writes, "The Father in secret is unseen to the physical senses, but He knows all things and rewards according to motives, not according to speech." Further on Mrs. Eddy observes: "We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love. We must 'pray without ceasing.' Such prayer is answered, in so far as we put our desires into practice. The Master's injunction is, that we pray in secret and let our lives attest our sincerity." ^{Science and Health, p. 15.}

I recall an experience I had once when I injured my hand. The pain was so severe that at first all I seemed to be able to do was repeat a part of the Lord's Prayer. I was strengthened at the time by the truth that I knew those words represented. Yet it was later, as I prayed quietly and recognized the need for greater humility, that I began to see the truth making a substantial difference in my thinking. I grew spiritually, and I was healed.

Statements of truth when voiced, even from the Bible and Science and Health, need the spirit of truth to give them life. If they were to be used merely as formulas, or repeated as mindless rituals or as some sort of incantation, they would be virtually lifeless. One of the hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal gives a sense of what genuine prayer is:

There is no magic to words as words. But when there is some mental activity generated in prayer, when something is going on in consciousness, when some redemption is taking place—then does our prayer have access to the power of God. The spontaneity and activity of holy inspiration uplift us. We see reality bright and fresh. We are healed.

WILLIAM E. MOODY